Begin Anywhere…Get Going!

Hi there! I’m Ms Begin Anywhere (or Ms BA for short) and welcome to the Begin Anywhere blog! This is where I share the ups and downs of Mr BA and my Financial Independence (FI) journey in the hopes of connecting with others FI path and staying motivated.  I will share my lessons learned and practical solutions along the way, and I hope my story influences your journey and inspires you to take action. These practical solutions for achieving financial freedom have allowed me to spend less time doing things I don’t want to do, and focus on things I’m passionate about.

We do not have a short path to the big day/number.  It was more like 8-10 years based on expenses (I was spending money on what?!) – ugh. I was 40 and Mr BA was 41 when we unearthed the concept. And, we’d been saving!  

Early Dreaming

When I was young, my lofty goal was to “retire early.” This goal was to be met on the very specific timeline of “some time before I got old.” I wasn’t so bold as to throw out a number to reverse engineer my goal towards back then. (Boy, I wish I would have!**) But as I moved into the working world, I lost sight of that dream. Truth be told, I fell into a drift state. I got married, bought a home, and we like nice things. However, as an adult my goal didn’t seem realistic based on my lifestyle, and the lifestyles and examples around me.

Only now in hindsight, did I recognize I DID have some examples in my family. But, I didn’t have the positive words to describe their situations or even the expectation that they were financially independent.  There was always an overtone of “when are they going back to work” or “what will they do” that peppered our family’s down trodden discussion. I’m not even sure it crossed my family’s minds when I was growing up, that they didn’t need to “do” anything given they had accumulated enough wealth to live off of. It wasn’t until I discovered an understanding of FI, that I could actually be happy for them and not wonder “when they are going back to work!”

Podcasts Shape Begin Anywhere

It was in June of 2018 that I learned about the concept of FI from a friend that had recommended a ChooseFI podcast to my tribe (aka my girl friends). I was mulching my home garden and working to clean up a couple of garden beds that had outpaced what Mr BA and I could keep up with.

Fortunately I. LOVE. PODCASTS.  So when I listened to this first one, I could not believe what I was hearing. It brought up this concept that I hadn’t realistically thought about in 15 years. We’d had just earlier in the year visited a financial planner that we were considering using for 1% of our assets annually. Super glad we dodged that bullet. I sent the podcast to Mr BA in the hopes he’d listen too and we could start making plans.  He did listen to it and we started to get on the same pages but to be clear he wasn’t as inspired as I was.

Let’s Begin Anywhere

Fortunately, over 50 podcasts were available to listen to in order to get acquainted with this concept. And, I had a ton of mulching to do! And, we were starting from scratch…I’m talking…figuring out our net worth, tracking spending, setting goals, etc.  But I got right to it. We’d used Mint.com in the past to track expenses when saving for a big purchase so we started using that again. The Personal Capital app was added in, and we started a spreadsheet to start tracking it all month to month. We cleaned up numerous 401k and other accounts. We figured out pensions, explored real estate and side hustles. I’ve logged the ups and downs which I plan to share here, so you can learn from my mistakes, implement the practical solutions I’ve found, and accelerate your journey.

As I mentioned this is and will be a long road for us. Plus, Mr BA and I did not have the same mindset from the get go. And, we continue to be in different places along the journey.

Also you likely noticed, I’m not sharing my or Mr BA’s names at the moment. This is so we can be more open with our story and not worry about bosses finding out and ruining our plans before we are ready. However, I plan to share as much as I reasonably can, starting with that we are both Gen X’ers that met and fell in love in college. Originally from the Midwest, we live in a college town today, and have been married for over 16 years.  We are enormous animal fans, but especially cats of any size. We strive to be that special aunt and uncle to our sweet nieces and nephews. I love to craft (Martha Stewart is my spirit animal!), and Mr BA is quite artistic as well. We’ll plan to share more along the way, so please stay tuned. 

Begin Anywhere is About Taking Action

For us, the magic of this journey has been in the actions we take as opposed to the ones we just read about, so I hope this blog will inspire you to start your journey, begin anywhere, keep at it, and reach your goals. You can begin anywhere – seriously.  Start now! Take action.

Things I’m Working On

** this mentality of “I wish I would have” is also something I’m working to shed. I’ve been wishing I would have done things earlier over the past year after finding the financial independence concept, and I’m slowly starting to chip it away from my vocabulary, and let it go. The past doesn’t matter. What we do now is the only thing that matters.

Are you looking to clean up your finances or head down the path to financial independence? Anything you are looking to remove from your vocabulary? 🙂 Leave me a comment below.